Defensive Mode Research Articles

Fear bradycardia and activation of the human periaqueductal grey

Animal models of predator defense distinguish qualitatively different behavioral modes that are activated at increasing levels of predation threat. A defense mode observed at intermediate threat levels is freezing: a cessation of locomotion that is characterized by a parasympathetically dominated autonomic nervous system response that causes heart rate deceleration, or fear bradycardia. Studies in rodents have shown that freezing depends on amygdalar projections to the periaqueductal grey (PAG). In humans, freezing-like behaviors are implicated in development and maintenance of psychopathology, but neural mechanisms underlying freezing or its characteristic autonomic response profile have not been identified. Here, we combined event-related blood oxygenation level-dependent functional MRI (BOLD-fMRI) with autonomic response measures in a picture viewing paradigm to probe activity and interconnectivity within the amygdala-PAG pathway and test for an association with parasympathetic as opposed to sympathetic activation. In response to negatively arousing pictures, we observed parasympathetic (bradycardia) and sympathetic (pupil dilation) autonomic responses, BOLD responses in the amygdala and PAG, and effective connectivity between these regions. Critically, BOLD responses in the PAG to negative pictures correlated on a trial-by-trial basis with bradycardia but not pupil dilation. This correlation with bradycardia remained significant when partialling out pupil dilation. Additionally, activity in regions associated with motor planning and inhibition mirrored the PAG response. Thus, our findings implicate the human PAG in a parasympathetically dominated defense mode that subserves a state of attentive immobility. Mechanistic insight into this qualitatively distinct defense mode may importantly advance translational models of anxiety disorders.

Oxygen uptake and heart rate response of 6 standardized tennis drills

The purpose of this study was to compare the oxygen uptake of various on-court tennis drills. Eleven tennis players were monitored with a portable metabolic device to measure oxygen uptake of 6 different tennis drills at low and high speeds. The 6 drills were done with or without striking the ball, over half or full-width of the court, in attack or defense mode, using forehand or backhand strokes. Oxygen uptake values (mean ± SD) ranged from 33.8 ± 4.2 to 42.3 ± 5.1 mL·kg⁻¹·min⁻¹ when running at low speed on the full-width court in defense mode without striking the ball and when running at high speed on the full-width court in attack mode while striking the ball, respectively. Specific differences were observed. Attacking mode requires 6.5% more energy than defensive playing mode. Backhand strokes demand 7% more energy at low speed than forehand ones. Running and striking the ball costs 10% more energy than running without striking the ball. While striking the ball, shuttle running on half-width court costs 14% more energy than running on full-width courts. The specificity of the oxygen uptake responses obtained for these various tennis drills gives an improved representation of their energy cost and could be used to optimize training loads.

Plant sex and induced responses independently influence herbivore performance, natural enemies and aphid-tending ants

Sex is an ecologically important form of genetic variation in dioecious plants, with males and females generally differing in constitutive resistance to herbivores. Yet little is known about sexual dimorphism with respect to induced or indirect defense, or whether sex-based differences are underlain by trade-offs among modes of defense. We compared male and female Valeriana edulis plants for constitutive and induced direct resistance to two herbivores, an early-season caterpillar and a late-season aphid, and for constitutive and induced indirect resistance in terms of abundance of natural enemies and aphid-tending ants. No sexual dimorphism was found in constitutive direct plant resistance, yet the sexes differed for constitutive indirect resistance, with 78 % more natural enemies and 117 % more ants present on females than males. Past feeding damage by caterpillars induced direct and indirect resistance in both males and females, increasing caterpillar development time by 26 % and the abundance of natural enemies by 147 %. Caterpillar feeding did not induce direct resistance with respect to caterpillar final mass or aphid performance. In all cases, there were no interactions between the effects of caterpillar damage and plant sex. In summary, plant sexual dimorphism and induced responses to herbivore damage independently influenced herbivore performance and the composition of arthropod communities at higher trophic levels.

Shamed Guiltless:

Shamed Guiltless:

Extent of Use of TKDL in Patent Offices: Trends and Concerns

India being rich in biodiversity has a varied species of plants and our ancestors also had marvellous knowledge of the uses of these plants, many of which have a great medicinal value. The traditional knowledge regarding many of these has been documented by our ancestors but in languages like Sanskrit, Urdu, Tamil etc. In this era of research, development, invention and competition, there were several instances where patents were claimed by foreign companies on medicines and drugs which were actually based on the traditional Indian systems of medicine. The post grant opposition of such patents proved to be time consuming as well as expensive and was also surrounded by uncertainty of outcome. It was in this background that the need was felt to have a database such as TKDL which unhindered by the barrier of language would enable an effective prior art search to be carried out. Today, with TKDL which enables India to prevent the grant of a wrongful patent at almost zero cost that too in just a few weeks time, India by and large is believed to be the only country to have such a cost effective and time efficient mechanism in place to protect its traditional knowledge. With the unique TKRC-IPC concordance, the TKDL has found wide acceptance in the international community and has given impressive results in the first few years. However, the key question is whether the measures for protection of traditional knowledge can stop with this. An attempt has also been made to look into some other issues such as whether TKDL in fact makes traditional knowledge more vulnerable to unjust exploitation and whether TKDL should go beyond the defensive mode of protection and venture into the task of affording positive protection to traditional knowledge.

Negotiating the Lines of Contention: Counterframing and Boundary Work in the School of the Americas Debate1

Counterframing scholars typically identify counterframes that interpretively distinguish arguments among opponents. This approach assumes that counterframing strategy centers on directly countering the claims of protesters. In my in‐depth examination of the ongoing debate between protesters and officials of the former School of the Americas, I identify a form of counterframing that agrees with and embraces the moral alternatives implicit in accusers’ claims. I bring boundary construction theory into conversation with counterframing analysis to expand understanding of how framing and counterframing strategies revolve around the competition for common, moral resources. I explain that in the movement to close the School of the Americas, protesters’ claims have served as moral boundaries against which the targeted institution has redefined its objectives and programs. I introduce the concept of “boundary negotiation” to argue that counterframing strategy and success lie in the negotiation of moral boundaries called into question by social movements. I outline defensive and offensive modes of boundary negotiation and identify boundary negotiation as a mechanism driving the link between counterframing and demobilization.

Alarm calls modulate the spatial structure of a breeding owl community.

Animals should continuously assess the threat of predation. Alarm calls inform on predation risk and are often used as cues to shape behavioural responses in birds and mammals. Hitherto, however, the ecological consequences of alarm calls in terms of organization of animal communities have been neglected. Here, we show experimentally that calls of a resident nocturnal raptor, the little owl Athene noctua, triggered a response in terms of breeding habitat selection and investment in current reproduction in conspecifics and heterospecifics. Little owls preferred to settle in territories where calls of conspecifics, irrespective of their type (i.e. alarm versus contact calls), were broadcasted, indicating that either conspecific attraction exists or calls are interpreted as foreign calls, eliciting settlement as a mode of defence against competitors. Also, we found that little owls seemed to invest more in current reproduction in safe territories as revealed by conspecific calls. Innovatively, we reported that a second owl species, the migratory scops owl Otus scops, preferred to breed in safe territories as indicated by little owls' calls. These results evidence that the emission of alarm calls may have, apart from well-known behavioural effects, ecological consequences in natural communities by inducing species-specific biases in breeding habitat selection. This study demonstrates a previously unsuspected informative role of avian alarm calls which may modulate the spatial structure of species within communities.

Genes of Microorganisms: Paving Way to Tailor Next Generation Fungal Disease Resistant Crop Plants

The automation of sequencing technologies, flooding in the knowledge of plant-pathogen interactions and advancements in bioinformatics provide tools leading to better knowledge not only of the genome of plant pathogens or microorganism beneficial to plants but also of ways of incorporating genes from microbes into plants as microbial-derived resistance. The identification of various microorganism genes playing key role during pathogensis and the dissection of the signal transduction components of the hypersensitive response and systemic acquired resistance pathways have greatly increased the diversity of options available for tailoring fungus resistant crops. The genetically engineered plants carrying these genes showed spontaneous activation of different defense mechanisms, leading the plant in an elevated state of defense. This ‘defense mode’ greatly enhances the plant’s ability to quickly react to a pathogen invasion and more successfully overcome the infection. The aim of this review is to highlight the dynamic use of genes of microorganisms in enhancing crop tolernace towards fungal intruders by examining the most relevant research in this field.

A white man in exile: the failure of masculinity in Athol Fugard's Sorrows and Rejoicings

This article explores intersections between understandings of masculinity and nationalism. Etymologically, ‘patriotism’ refers to a love for a fatherland and a patriarchal order; it includes notions of loyalty, honour and a range of qualities often associated with conceptions of masculinity. But if gender remains fixed to these normative constructions, what happens to one's sense of masculine identity when the national state changes? My interest lies in exploring how white South African men have been repositioned in terms of a shift in their gendered identification, with a reflection on the possibly tragic consequences of maintaining an overly rigid gender role identification. As long as masculinity is embedded within nationalism, it will be caught up within a defensive reactive mode which can turn self-destructive. In order to explore these ideas the article employs as its central metaphor the character of Dawid Olivier, who is the protagonist of Athol Fugard's Sorrows and Rejoicings (2002).

Bread God, Blood God: Wonderhosts and Early Encounters with Secularization

This article challenges the secularization thesis, which envisions a bewildered medieval subjectivity that stands in stark contrast to our rational modernity, by way of an analysis of bleeding Eucharists. These artifacts throw into relief the complex skein of problems woven together under the name of secularism, especially the degree of enchantment experienced by subjects in the century leading up to the Reformation. The complex series of responses to miraculous Eucharists in the Wilsnack blood cult and in the Croxton Play of the Sacrament demonstrate that skepticism is a structural moment in the creation of belief; the disavowal of faith is a lure that dupes subjects into ideological conformity. In this respect, the defensive mode of iconoclastic debunking is not the exclusive possession of a modern and cynical age but an implicit property of an image worship that is essentially an agent of its own secularization, inspiring bewilderment and demystification in turn.

Ecological trade-offs between jasmonic acid-dependent direct and indirect plant defences in tritrophic interactions.

Recent studies on plants genetically modified in jasmonic acid (JA) signalling support the hypothesis that the jasmonate family of oxylipins plays an important role in mediating direct and indirect plant defences. However, the interaction of two modes of defence in tritrophic systems is largely unknown.In this study, we examined the preference and performance of a herbivorous leafminer (Liriomyza huidobrensis) and its parasitic wasp (Opius dissitus) on three tomato genotypes: a wild-type (WT) plant, a JA biosynthesis (spr2) mutant, and a JA-overexpression 35S::prosys plant. Their proteinase inhibitor production and volatile emission were used as direct and indirect defence factors to evaluate the responses of leafminers and parasitoids.Here, we show that although spr2 mutant plants are compromised in direct defence against the larval leafminers and in attracting parasitoids, they are less attractive to adult flies compared with WT plants. Moreover, in comparison to other genotypes, the 35S::prosys plant displays greater direct and constitutive indirect defences, but reduced success of parasitism by parasitoids.Taken together, these results suggest that there are distinguished ecological trade-offs between JA-dependent direct and indirect defences in genetically modified plants whose fitness should be assessed in tritrophic systems and under natural conditions.

Superego and Sexuality: An Analysis of a Psychosomatic Solution

Superego influences have been little considered in the current literature on psychosomatic illnesses; an archaic and sadistic superego, however, is often a dominating force in the maintenance of these painful bodily states. This dynamic is illustrated in the analysis of a dissociated and concrete patient, whose primary modes of defense, self-reparation, and object-relationship were at first erotized bodily pain and illness. Analysis of an intense, highly conflicted transference facilitated the gradual emergence of this patient's capacity to make use of a metaphorical interpretive process. Severe narcissistic injuries were integrated, allowing the evolution of a mourning process. This fostered individuation of the self, establishment of a differentiated body image, an integrated superego, consolidated object relations, and a more mature ego ideal.

The Listener's Response

[L]istening is that preliminary attention which permits intercepting whatever might disturb the territorial system; it is a mode of defence against surprise; its object (what it is oriented toward)...

Hypoxia Tolerance in Animals: Biology and Application

Many invertebrates and ectothermic vertebrates successfully cope with a fluctuating supply of ambient oxygen-and consequently, a highly variable tissue oxygenation-through increasing their antioxidant barriers. During chronic deprivation of oxygen, however, the hypometabolic defense mode of the fruit fly Drosophila, the hypoxia-induced behavioral hypothermia of the crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus, and the production of ethanol during anoxia by the crucian carp Carassius carassius all indicate that these animals are also capable of utilizing a suite of genetic and physiological defenses to survive otherwise lethal reductions in tissue oxygenation. Normally, much of an organism's gene response to hypoxia is orchestrated via the hypoxia-inducible transcription factor HIF. Recent developments expand our view of HIF function even further by highlighting regulatory roles for HIF in the hypometabolism of insects, in the molting and the normoxic immune response of crustaceans, and in the control-via the downstream effector gene erythropoietin-of the hypoxic ventilatory response and pulmonary hypertension in mammals. These and related topics were collectively presented by the authors in a symposium of the 2008 ICA-CBP conference at Mara National Reserve, Kenya, Africa. This synthesis article communicates the essence of the symposium presentations to the wider community.

SOFT REPRESSION AND MOBILIZATION: THE CASE OF TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM OF DANISH MUSLIMS DURING THE CARTOONS CONTROVERSY

This article delivers an empirical analysis of the effects of Danish Muslims' transnational activities during the Muhammad cartoons controversy in 2005–6 on subsequent Muslim claims making in Denmark. The article argues that the envisioned “boomerang effect” of the transnational activities—the attempt to put pressure on Danish authorities by contacting political and religious authorities in the Middle East—backfired on Danish Muslims. The transnational move was successfully “securitized” by elements of the media and the political elite, inviting soft forms of repression against the Muslim actors, especially those involved in the “imam delegations” that traveled to Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria in December 2005. These actors were forced into a more defensive mode of claims making soon after their return to Denmark through processes of name calling and stigmatization. Building on this case study, the article concludes by suggesting some theoretical modifications/specifications to the boomerang model of transnational activism.

The correlated study of coping style and psychological defense style of youth Hepatitis B patients

Objective To study the correlation of coping style ( MCMQ) and psychological defense style ( DSQ) of youth Hepatitis 8 class (HBV) patients, and to provide the theoretical basis for clinical psychological nursing. Methods Using MCMQ and DSQ questionnaire, 76 cases of young HBV patients were investiged. Results MCMQ mean;In the face (3.13 ±0. 65) , evasive (2. 66 ±0.50) , yielding (2.46 ±0.57) ;after response to defense mechanisms, the mean;immature - type (5.58 ±1.38) , mature (4. 78 ±2. 03) , intermediate type (4.40 ±1. 34) , cover type (6.56 ±1.24) . Conclusions Defense and respond are all belong to the coping styles to meet internal and external environmental requirements, which attribute self - psychological adjustment and good defense styles. And it is benefit to individual well-being, alleviate the negative emotional and psycho - social stress caused by adverse effects, and promote patients'rehabilita-tion and improve mental health and the quality of life and prevent disease recurrence. Key words: Youth hepatitis B; Medical coping modes; Psychological defense mode; Comparison

Effectiveness of formal observation in inpatient psychiatry in preventing adverse outcomes: the state of the science

Formal observation in psychiatric settings is a widely accepted intervention employed by psychiatric nurses to reduce the incidence of adverse patient outcomes such as suicides, self-harm, violence and elopements in the psychiatric population. Formal observation includes general or routine observation, observation every 15 or 30 min, continuous or constant observation, and one-to-one observation. While formal observation consumes nursing resources, the efficacy of formal observation in reducing patient risk and providing therapeutic benefit remains unclear. To date, no randomized controlled studies exist. The existing qualitative research fails to demonstrate a direct correlation between the act of formal observation and the prevention of adverse patient outcomes. Common in the literature is a debate as to whether formal observation or therapeutic engagement is more beneficial. This paper, therefore, identifies gaps in the research and synthesizes relevant research regarding the effectiveness of formal observation in preventing adverse outcomes like suicides, self-harm, violence and elopements.

The double‐edged sword of the immune system–a force for good or evil in the wound?

The double‐edged sword of the immune system–a force for good or evil in the wound?

Plant defense against herbivory: progress in identifying synergism, redundancy, and antagonism between resistance traits

Plants respond to herbivore attack through a complex and variable system of defense, involving different physical barriers, toxic chemicals, and recruitment of natural enemies. To fully understand the relative role of each type of defense, their synergisms, redundancies, or antagonisms between traits, a variety of methods of enquiry, commonly used in plant physiology and ecology, have been employed. By overexpressing or silencing genes of interest, it is possible to understand the specific role of a particular defensive molecule or mode of action. We argue, however, that these types of experiments alone are not enough to holistically understand the physiological as well as ecological role of plant defenses. We thus advocate for the use of a combination of methods, including genetic modification, quantitative genetics, and phylogenetically controlled comparative studies.

Hannah Arendt's Testimony: Judging in a Lawless World

I was really of the opinion that Eichmann was a buffoon. I'll tell you this: I read the transcript of his police investigation, thirty-six hundred pages, read it, and read it very carefully, and I do not know how many times I laughed--laughed out loud! People took this reaction in a bad way. I cannot do anything about that. But I know one thing. Three minutes before certain death, I probably still would laugh. And that, they say, is the tone of voice. That the tone of voice is predominantly ironic is completely true. The tone of voice in this case is really the person. Hannah Arendt (1) Hannah Arendt's laughter has long rung hollow in the ears of many commentators on the Eichmann trial. The ironic tone of Arendt's controversial reports on the trial, Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), her critics claim, is a mode of defence; a cold-hearted carapace of bitter reason thrown up against the atrocious history of unbearable suffering dramatised in the 62 days of harrowing witness testimony that made the 1961 Jerusalem trial unique in the history of war crime trials. As Idith Zertal has argued recently, however, it was not--or at least not only--the suffering of Holocaust survivors per se that Arendt was distancing herself from in pre-1967 Jerusalem, but the sanctification of that suffering within an emerging politics of Israeli nationhood. In Zertal's unsettling history of the vexed relation between trauma, grief, collective memory and national politics in Israel, Arendt's deliberate irreverence deconstructs a national mythology that did not so much deliver justice to Holocaust victims--'as if justice could be rendered', writes Zertal of Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion's presentation of the Eichmann trial as an uniquely expiatory event in the history of Israel--as set extraordinarily difficult cultural and political terms on the representation of that justice itself. (2) In this essay, I want to suggest that Arendt's refusal to inhabit a rhetoric of traumatic testimony--a refusal that differs so strikingly from the tone of much contemporary memoir writing--connects Eichmann in Jerusalem with her larger project to think about judgement in the 1960s and 1970s. For Arendt, the Prosecution's emphasis on 'what the Jews had suffered, not on what Eichmann had done', in her words, was questionable politically, but could not be further from what she thought should have been the trial's main business: the risky, necessary and exhilarating legal, moral and philosophical task of defining new terms for judgement after the Shoah. (3) For Arendt, Eichmann the buffoon was the disturbingly vacuous correlative for the moral void left by Nazi history. Finding him funny was part of what it meant to judge him. If one can somehow be one's own irony, as Arendt later suggested in the interview with Gunter Gaus cited above, if irony turns out to be a kind of kernel of the historical and remembering self and not merely a protective shell, it is perhaps because the ironic voice positions the subject in a distinctive relation to historical injury--not only as a suffering, but as a political, moral and, crucially in Arendt's later writing on judgement, thinking witness. I GREY CATS One of the paradoxes of the Eichmann trial was that while nobody really doubted that the defendant was guilty, the guilt of others not in the glass box dominated discussion of it. From Eichmann's ludicrous self-aggrandising claims that his death would serve as an example to all future anti-semites and at the same time relieve Germany's youth of its guilt complex, to Ben Gurion's, 'We want the nations of the world to know [...] and they should be ashamed'(EinJ, p10), the trial took place in a highly-charged culture of grief and expiation in which Eichmann's guilt was not only a given, but even on occasion an irrelevance. (Ben Gurion again: 'the fate of Eichmann, the person, has no interest for me whatsoever. What is important is the spectacle' (IH, p107). …